Weapon slings provide many advantages to the user when they are installed on a firearm, such as a rifle or machine gun. First, slings are helpful for carrying a firearm by freeing the user's hands and distributing the firearm's weight more uniformly over the user's body to reduce fatigue. Second, slings can serve as an effective shooting support. Two-point slings have attachment points at both the front and rear of the firearm. These are particularly helpful for facilitating accurate shooting from a variety of positions, including shooting using only one hand, by steadying the attached firearm.
Unfortunately, attaching a weapon sling to some firearms can be difficult because the manufacturer did not make allowances for doing so when they made the gun. Therefore, it takes special devices to adapt the sling to mount to the gun.
The use of a sling loop body with a permanently attached loop of nylon coated stainless steel aircraft grade cable to connect a weapon sling to a firearm is well known in the art. The cable can be inserted through eyelets, loops, slots, or any other opening on the firearm the cable can fit through. The body is then passed through the loop of the cable to form a lark's head knot. Subsequently, one end of a sling is attached to the sling loop body by passing the end of the sling through a slot in the sling loop body and securing the end of the sling to itself using a buckle.
The nylon coated cable is successful in achieving its primary objectives in that it is quieter, stronger, and more versatile than traditional sling hook attachments. The nylon coated cable also does not create wear marks on the firearm. The disadvantage of the use of a loop of cable permanently attached to the sling loop body is that the sling must first be detached from the sling loop body during both installation and removal of the sling loop body on the firearm. This requirement makes it impossible to easily and quickly remove the sling from the firearm, which impedes conversion of a sling from a two-point carry position to a single-point carry position for dynamic situations or confined spaces. The inability to easily and quickly remove the sling from the firearm could also be potentially dangerous if the sling were to become entangled with the user or the environment in a combat or law enforcement situation.
Therefore, a need exists for a new and improved sling attachment device that enables a sling to be easily and quickly removed from a firearm without first detaching the sling from the sling attachment device. In this regard, the various embodiments of the present invention substantially fulfill at least some of these needs. In this respect, the sling attachment device according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in doing so provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of enabling a sling to be easily and quickly removed from a firearm without first detaching the sling from the sling attachment device.